


Misery Acquaints

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Hateful Eight (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blood, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Consent Play, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Gunplay, Homophobic Language, Humiliation, Intentionally Bad Spelling & Grammar, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Canon, Racist Language, Scars, Sharing a Bed, Spit As Lube, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:58:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6488983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't the start of a beautiful friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misery Acquaints

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



When they rode into Red Rock six days later, bloodied up good but somehow destiny-defyingly both still living, it turned out that no-good, no-account redneck motherfucker Chris Mannix had been right after all: there weren’t no fifteen men lying in wait to shoot ‘em in the gut and sack that little shithole of a town over dear ol’ Daisy Domergue. Jody’s gang was all dead right down to its last little lady.

And in a twist a whole lot stranger still than that, when Major Marquis Warren finally awoke sore and surly in some shitty-ass Red Rock boarding house bed, the doctor cleaning off his bloody hands and fixing to leave him there said the town’s new sheriff was the one who’d saved his life. Turned out that goddamned hillbilly bastard Chris Mannix hadn’t lied about that, either. Christ on a crutch if Warren wasn’t really, truly, fucking hilariously surprised by that. Who knew the white boy had it in him.

Of course, soon enough, Mannix swung on by Warren's room in his shitty tin star and his shit-eating grin and went and ruined the moment by opening his goddamned mouth about it. Warren couldn’t find it in him to be surprised by that part, but what he didn't do was tell him to get his pasty ass out of there like maybe he should’ve done. He let him stay. 

Hell, Mannix had brung some pretty good brandy in with him, so Warren remembers how he thought like maybe it was worth his while if the dumbass stayed. Mannix poured two measures into two glasses that were maybe halfway clean and when he kicked up his dusty-booted feet onto the table like he owned the place, Warren clucked his tongue and tilted his head just so. Mannix brought his feet back down again. He grimaced. Warren laughed and Mannix grimaced harder maybe just to hide his smile. They drank.

It sure wasn't the start of a beautiful friendship.

\---

The first couple of months after that were fifty goddamned shades of fucked up. He can't say the next few showed much sign of improvement.

It seemed somehow, and only the good lord knew exactly how that was, they’d gotten into Red Rock once the blizzard had finally blown itself out. They arrived with a bunch of froze-up corpses adorning the carriage roof all tied in place with Minnie’s good rope ‘cause it sure as hell weren’t like she’d be needing it. Turned out Mannix maybe couldn’t drive a six-horse rig but he got along just fine with four and anyway, once they’d gotten outside of that whoreson nailed-up door, gotten the horses under harness and then finally gotten started up, the snow weren’t nowhere near so bad as they’d thought it’d be. 

Mannix rode up front with his scarf pulled right up over his nose and Warren told him that was a God-sent improvement. Warren rode in back all covered up with blankets like someone’s dear old grandpappy and tried not to bleed to death. He’s still not sure how he managed that, 'cept he's told somewhere along the way Chris Mannix saved his life.

Three days later, after Mannix had his star pinned up there on his chest but before he’d quit showing it off to everyone who crossed his path, the new sheriff saw he got himself paid every last cent those froze-up, shot-up corpses were worth to the law and then some. After, they split all those bounties right down the middle, counted it out at the shitty table in Warren’s room that was so damn small their drinks wouldn’t fit on there with the money. It was the prettiest goddamn sight Warren’s ever seen, short of General Smithers’ blood decorating Minnie’s Haberdashery. He still recalls his surprise that Mannix didn't just cut and run with the cash, tin star be damned.

Another three days after that, Mannix had bought himself Red Rock’s one shitty saloon-cum-boarding house ‘cause he liked the notion of free liquor, Warren guesses, and he thought it a mite unkind to point it out that buying the place meant he'd bought all the motherfucking liquor, from the fancy-schmancy hoity-toity brandy that said it came clear across the ocean on a ship from France to the shitty bathtub whisky distilled someplace just outside town that’d send a man blind if he weren’t real careful. Warren thought it a mite unkind to mention but he went ahead and said it anyway. Mannix scowled and poured them both a drink, but made sure it was a cheap one.

They sat at the same damn table there together every night for a month after that and ate dinner while Mannix chattered away like a prizewinning asshole and from time to time Warren kinda crossed his fingers and wished John Ruth upchucking blood all over the floorboards hadn’t kept Mannix out of the coffee. Still, it was worth all the aggravation for the free food even if it tasted like the insides of a cowboy’s long johns after a real long ride, and for the fucking dumbfounded way all of the white folks stared at the two of them eating there together, peaceful-like. Warren made sure to smile and tip his hat to 'em all, just to see 'em flinch.

He gambled some and he drank some and he whored some, but three months later once his wounds were all scars and not gaping bloody holes he was still so damn flush with cash from the bounties that he bought up Minnie’s place before no one else could. His name went right there on the contract, signed and seal and legal.

“You gonna change the name?” Mannix asked, sat there at their usual table with his fourth or fifth or maybe sixth whisky in his hand. 

“Hell no,” Warren replied. “That draughty-ass barn’ll be _Minnie’s_ right till kingdom come.” And that wasn’t just ‘cause there weren’t nobody in town would’ve known where to put the apostrophe in _Marquis’s_. Still, he was pretty damn sure Mannix wouldn’t’ve known an apostrophe if one had stepped right in the door, slapped him about the face and made him call it daddy, but the son of a bitch might just’ve liked the process. 

Of course, Marquis Warren was _not_ a motherfucking haberdasher. Once he’d gotten all of the the blood up off of the floorboards, or as much of it as maybe made the place acceptable to folks passing by, he found himself a couple there in Red Rock was willing to run the place for a share of the profits. Jenny and Jackie maybe wouldn’t even rob him blind, he thought, and they've not in all the years he's known 'em since or at least they're smart enough not to let him see it. 

He went right on back to bounty hunting once the place was back in business and when the warrant said _Dead or Alive_ he brought ‘em in dead just like John Ruth should’ve done if he’d known what was good for him. Sheriff Mannix seemed to prefer that anyhow, not that he ever really said as much in his professional capacity when the townsfolk liked their hangings so particularly, all gathered up to watch. Mannix saved his personal opinions for dinnertime. He had a lot of them.

They were back there every month or two for a year or more, eating dinner there in Mannix's saloon, fucked up as that was. In time, he got himself used to Mannix’s ugly face across the dinner table and to his tall tales and his shiny star. The free food and the free liquor and the free room upstairs that they neither of them breathed a word about made the company a whole lot easier to swallow. Easier than the meat in cook's stew like part-seasoned boot leather, at least.

A year turned to two turned to another bitter Wyoming winter that found him staying most of it there in Red Rock, eating dinner at the usual table there with Mannix, pissing off the bar's more genteel clientele - if there was anyone in Red Rock could be truly called genteel at all, that was. Warren made no secret that he knew what Mannix meant by the word _genteel_ was _white_. Warren made no secret that he wouldn’t tolerate no fomentation of anti-black feeling there in Red Rock while he was resident in it, and when he put his guns on the table Mannix would always just raise his brows and watch him do it, like he was getting his dinner with a free fucking show. Sometimes Warren thought the fucker just maybe liked to watch him work. 

One night, to Mannix, from the next table over: “You know you’re eating dinner with a nigger, boy?” Warren bristled. The fella snickered. 

He turned to the fella’s companion. “You know you’re eating dinner with a goddamned braying jackass?” he said. 

The braying jackass drew his gun, but he was too damn drunk to shoot it straight, or to shoot it at all when it came down to it. Warren pulled himself up out of his seat and he went over there, took the gun right on out of the jackass's hand. He pistol-whipped him with his own poorly-maintained pistol then shoved the barrel straight on into his mouth.

“Next time the fancy strikes you to call a black man _nigger_ , you better think on this, boy,” Warren said, and cocked the gun. The jackass fairly fucking pissed himself. “Or next time you come round here running that dirty mouth of yours, I’ll fill it up with my big black cock and we’ll see who’s laughing then. You get me?” The jackass nodded, the gunmetal clacking against his teeth. “I know you do.”

And when Warren turned back to the table, gun still in hand, Mannix was watching him all drunk and wide-eyed and so damn hard in his pants he could’ve clubbed a man to death with it. Warren laughed out loud as he holstered his weapon. 

“Go sleep it the hell off, sheriff,” he said, and Mannix fairly high-tailed it outta there but the next night, Warren assaulted a guy for some petty goddamned insult and it got Mannix the same damn way again, red-faced and rock hard and bewildered. So he did it again. Then he did it again, and _again_ , till four nights later the son of a bitch could barely even look at him straight. Warren just found that hilarious.

“You really do those things you said you did to General Smithers’ son?” Mannix asked the next night, making like the stew was possessed of some fucking fascination when it was, in all reality, so damn bland all it tasted of was half-burned turnips. “You make him march all naked in the snow till he was downright fucking grateful to suck on your privates like one of Minnie’s peppermint sticks, or was that all so much horseshit like your Lincoln letter?”

Warren shrugged and poured himself another brandy from the bottle. “This just a general enquiry or you _want_ it to be true, Chris Mannix?” he said. 

"Forget it," Mannix muttered. "I must be outta my fucking mind."

"That shit just implies you got much of a mind to get out of," Warren pointed out, but Mannix didn't even mount his own defense for staring into his stew. 

"Did that Domergue fella really blow your balls off?" Mannix asked, prodding at the mystery meat with the back of his worn wooden spoon. And, amused, piqued, Warren leaned forward on his elbows over his own damn stew. 

"You wanna come upstairs and find that out your own self, huh?"

Mannix looked at him just like a stunned mutt in the goddamned road for a second then he frowned into his bowl. "Hell no," he said. "You got a dirty goddamned mind on you, major. Perverted like." But the way he shifted in his seat like he was getting wood just underneath the table amused the holy hell out of Warren. And when his door opened late that night, he was only halfway to surprised by it. 

"So you came to find out about my private parts you claim you ain't got no interest in," Warren said, standing himself up from his chair and smoothing down his waistcoat over his belly. "Or are you gonna lie to me, sheriff? Fine, upstanding men of the law like yourself shouldn't tell no lies."

"I ain't come here to lie," Mannix said, and he said nothing else so Warren figured maybe that much was true at least, even if all he did after that was stand there dumb as a goddamned mule in the doorway, looking anywhere but at him. 

"You know this place ain't changed since the last time you were in it, right?" Warren said, amused. "And it ain't never been nothing fancy so quit staring." 

Mannix grimaced. Warren smiled and walked straight on up to him across the room.

"I know I'm just a tenant here but don't good etiquette says you oughtta take off your guns inside a man's home?" Warren said, and he reached out and tapped the buckle of Mannix's gun belt with the back of his hand. The way Mannix looked after that, you'd've thought he'd been slapped clean across the face. "And close the goddamned door, sheriff, you're either in or you're out." Mannix closed the door. Mannix bolted the door. Seemed he was in and Warren could've laughed the whole damn night away over the expression on Mannix's face. 

"So, you wanna know if Jody Domergue really fucked me up," Warren said, and Mannix looked pretty much like he wanted anything but, or wanted _nothing_ but, 'cept he didn't move a muscle from behind the bolted door. So Warren unbuckled his belt right then and there and Mannix's eyes went wide like saucers as he watched him do it. Warren gave it a second then made as if to push down his pants, but he stopped short, pulled his hands away. 

"Seems to me you oughtta be the one doing the work here," Warren said, and tucked his thumbs in at the armholes of his waistcoat. 

He didn't really expect him to do it. He didn't really expect him to get anywhere close to doing it. He expected him to balk at the idea of it and flee the goddamned scene, hightail it outta there like he'd just had a shovel-load of snow shoved down his britches, but Mannix set his jaw and balled his fists and after a long, dumb moment, he took a step forward. He reached out. He got his fingertips to the bottom hem of Warren's waistcoat and tucked them under it; Warren felt his chilly goddamned fingers against his warm skin and it seemed Mannix felt his warm skin against his chilly goddamned fingers 'cause _that_ was when he balked, and yanked his bands back like he'd shoved them straight into a fire and not just a black man's pants. 

"I don't know just what in the hell you think you're doing, major," Mannix said, wide-eyed, flustered, "but I ain't like that. No siree, you know I ain't."

But all Warren could do in response was laugh out loud, double over, slap his thigh like that was the single most motherfucking hilarious thing he'd ever heard in his whole damn life. And maybe it was, he thought later, thinks now, once Mannix had stormed the hell out of there and slammed the door damn near off of its hinges behind him. 

Chris Mannix sure as hell _was_ like that, it seemed. And Warren had no doubt that wasn't the end of it. 

\---

It was a week later that they rode out of Red Rock together as planned, wrapped up tight in coats and gloves and scarves 'cause halfway to spring only meant halfway through winter. Warren had another bounty or two to track down then collect on and Mannix had some kind of business with the sheriff in the next town over and goddamn if Mannix didn't somehow keep his dumbass mouth shut up tight the whole damn way through the snow to Minnie's, just like he'd done for the past week back home in Red Rock. Must've been damn near killing him not to make a peep, smart-mouthed asshole that he was. 

They came up outside and handed over their horses to Jenny's new stable hand for rest and watering, then they went inside after the last stage of the day had already headed off and taken all the customers with it, stomping the snow from their boots on the porch. Most of the blood was gone, of course. Warren and his employees, partners or whatever the hell they were in legal terms had gotten most of it up off of the floorboards and down off of the walls except maybe for a patch or two here and there you wouldn't see if you weren't looking for it. Mannix was looking for it. Warren was looking for Mannix looking for it, since he hadn't even been back there once in the near three years that had gone by by then, so he thought. 

"You been back here since?" Warren asked, settling himself down at the table where Mannix had sat, two glasses in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other that he set down on the worn old tabletop. Mannix frowned at them, not at him. "Perk of being the proprietor, same as you and your saloon." He poured two glasses of the stuff and pushed one over to Mannix who eyed it like it was the same goddamned poison that'd killed John Ruth. Warren just ignored that and sipped at his own. It wasn't poisoned, but Mannix still didn't lift his glass, still didn't say a word. It was right on the verge of unnatural, Warren thought, that loquacious bastard being silent the way he was. 

Past sundown, Jenny and Jackie who ran the place went on down through the trapdoor to the room they'd got all set up for themselves down there and Warren drank some more while Mannix glowered right into the fire. So Warren took it upon himself to go over there and join him, sat down in the chair where the general had bought it and watched him over the chessboard with missing pieces that no one had thought to throw away. They've played a couple times since then, used bullets for pawns.

"You really do all the things you said you did to General Smithers' boy?" Mannix asked. It figured the first thing he'd say in a week would be that. 

Warren shrugged and sat back. They'd mostly gotten the blood off of the floors but the upholstery was a wholly different matter; he knew the general's blood was soaked in deep under the blanket on the back of his chair, not that he gave a damn about that. Maybe Mannix might've.

"What do _you_ think, white boy?" he asked. 

"I think you're full of shit," Mannix said. "I think you never so much as met him, even."

"If you say so."

"I _do_ say so."

"Well then, it must be true."

"I reckon it is."

"Well good for you, sheriff."

"Yeah, good for me." Warren rested his head back against the blanket behind him; Mannix frowned. "You really make him suck on your johnson for some blanket you ain't never gave him?"

"Thought you said I was full of shit, Chris Mannix."

"I reckon you are, major." He frowned harder. "You think he liked it, 'cause it was warm and he was freezing his nuts off out in the snow?"

Warren looked at him levelly. He could've gone on, could've told him a tale, could've said whatever he damn well pleased and Mannix would've listened to it, would've sat himself right on the edge of his chair and lapped that shit up. "I'm going to bed," he said instead, and pushed up out of the chair. "I'm sure as hell not drunk enough for any of this shit right now." 

There was still blood under the sheets, dried up where it'd soaked right into the mattress, but Warren paid it no mind. He took off his coat and his hat hung them up then he sat down and he pulled off his boots, stood them together by the side of the bed then lay down, stretched out in his clothes. He pulled the blanket up over himself and tried not to listen to Mannix drinking himself stupid back over by the crackle of the fire. 

Maybe he should've been surprised when Mannix woke him later. Maybe he should've been surprised at _how_ Mannix woke him, too. He _definitely_ should've stopped it right away, yelled a whole fucking tirade of colorful obscenities or just punched the jackass straight in the jaw and had done with it, but he did nothing of the sort. Hell, he barely even moved any, certainly not enough so as Mannix noticed he'd gone from sleeping to waking, and he closed his eyes again before Mannix could notice that, either. 

Mannix was sitting on the bed right next to him. Mannix had his hands under the blanket, then he pulled the whole thing back, slowly, carefully, like he was trying not to wake him. Then Mannix's hands were on him instead of the blanket, tugging at his belt till it was open, till he could ease down Warren's pants right along with his worn old long johns and oh yeah, he should've stopped him, 'cause when the motherfucking fuck had he _meant_ for this to happen? He'd been taunting the shit out of Mannix 'cause what the redneck son of a whore wanted had been pretty obvious all along, but he'd never expected he'd go through with it. And hell, he'd told himself he'd slap him down and call him a cocksucking princess or some such, then taunt the everloving shit out of him for that, too.

Then Mannix's hands were _really_ fucking on him. They were on his thighs, on his belly, then finally Mannix seemed to've worked up the nerve to run his fingers over the scar in Warren's groin, the jagged line where the shitty-ass sawbones of a doctor back in Red Rock had cut him open to dig the bullet out of his leg. The inside of Mannix's wrist brushed against his cock and fuck, he was hard, what the _fuck_ was that about? And then god-fucking-damn it, the haberdashery's front door swung wide open and so did Warren's eyes. 

It took three seconds for Warren to recognize the newcomer's face and grab for one of his guns; by the time the first bullet hit the fella square in the chest, Mannix had followed his lead and pulled Warren's other gun and the two of them shot that motherfucker down right where he stood, the door still wide open. The bounty fell down dead and Warren looked at Mannix. Mannix looked at Warren. Looked like all Mannix could think to do was hand back Warren's gun and that was a whole hell of a lot more than Warren had in mind.

"What the hell's going on up there?" Jenny called up, sticking both barrels of her trusty old shotgun up out of the trapdoor. Warren covered himself up just in case the lady herself made an appearance and not just her weapon, but she didn't. 

"Ain't nothing for you two kids to worry about," Warren called back down. "I just bagged me my bounty a couple days early is all. Go on back to bed. We'll clean this shit up."

The shotgun disappeared. "You best not have stained those floorboards again, Marquis Warren," Jenny called, muffled by the boards, but Warren's heart was pumping double quick and his cock had just swelled up even harder instead of wilting down at all. Mannix was gawping at him like some backwoods redneck of the lowest order, caught between running like hell and something really fucking stupid. So Warren cocked his pistol. He pulled back the sheet and he motioned to his cock just like the meaning was obvious. 

Mannix looked so comically fucking grateful for the excuse that Warren could've laughed and so he did, he laughed and he laughed and he laughed as he shoved the muzzle of the gun up under Mannix's chin and Mannix put his mouth on him, licked him, sucked him, like Warren guessed the idiot thought maybe Chester Smithers had. 

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Mannix got his own dick out and stroked himself. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Warren set the gun aside and got his fingers into Mannix's hair. He came first and Mannix after, with Warren's wilting cock still in his mouth like maybe he just didn't want to look him in the eye after. Still, he did have to pull back, once he was done too.

"Well, that was real nice, Chris," Warren said as he shimmied around on the mattress to pull up his pants. Mannix scowled, and Warren reached over to pat his cheek. "I bet your daddy would be _real_ proud." 

"Fuck you, major," Mannix replied, but hell if he didn't look at least half as proud of himself as he looked appalled at himself and once he'd wiped himself off and tucked himself back in, once he'd stomped away, dragged the dead fella out of the door and left him out in the snow, Mannix came back to the bed and sat himself back down again. Then he lay down, on his side, facing the wall, facing away. Warren said nothing, just cursed himself in his head and let Mannix sleep right there. 

By the time he woke, the bastard had already moved on. Warren didn't follow, just headed back to Red Rock, dragging his bounty on a makeshift sled behind his horse 'cause like hell he felt like riding with it strapped down over his saddle. He had cash to collect and besides, Mannix was the goddamned sheriff of Red Rock. He'd be back. 

\---

A week later, eight days later, eight _nights_ later, Warren's bounty long since paid out for the stinking corpse with a shitload of bullets in him, Mannix got back into town. It seemed damn near the first thing he did afterwards was let himself into Warren's room right around midnight. Fool was still in Smithers' old coat that smelled like horse so bad Warren knew it was him from across the room. 

Warren went ahead and drew his gun on him anyway 'cause you never knew which thieving son of a whore was gonna try to lay his hands on your ready money, even when you had the kind of reputation Marquis Warren had come to have. Sure, so Mannix had never actually struck him as the thieving sort, but it seemed right anyhow and in the light of the lamp in Mannix's hand he looked like he might've wanted him to go ahead and shoot besides. Maybe there was a time he would've shot, Warren thinks, but that was followed on by a spell where he just _might've_ shot, then whatever the fuck you could call what had come after. The last time he'd really felt inclined to put a bullet in the white boy's skull had been years ago by then. The last time he really felt inclined to put a bullet in the white boy's skull at all was back at Minnie's, before the bleeding ever started.

Of course, none of that kept Mannix from shutting the door, bolting the door and coming on over. None of that kept Mannix from going down on his knees, Smithers' long coat spread out on the dusty floor around him like that could make the damn thing any worse. None of that kept Warren from shoving the muzzle of his gun right up under Mannix's jaw and having him suck him off again, right then and there, on his knees on the floorboards with his hand at the scar in Warren's groin while Warren sat himself up on the side of the bed. Warren pulled something up by his ribs when he came and nearly yanked out a handful of Mannix's hair, such as it was. Mannix yelped around a mouthful of dick and he gagged as he swallowed. Warren put the pistol down on the table by the bed. Mannix rocked up onto his feet. 

"You got a real sweet mouth, sheriff," Warren said, settling himself back into bed with a smile. "Bet you got a whole lotta practice back in the day, with your daddy's nice confederate boys. Am I right?"

"Fuck you, major," Mannix said with a frown, red-cheeked like he might pop a vein in his head at any second. HIs hands flexed tight into fists, and he turned to leave as Warren chuckled. 

Mannix got over to the door. His hands unflexed. He unbolted the door but didn't open it and with his hat in one hand he rested his forehead down against the wood. "I ain't never done nothing like this before," he said, and he didn't look back as yanked the squeaky-ass damn door wide open, and he left. 

Warren cursed under his breath as he pulled up his blanket. The problem was he believed him. Would've been a whole lot simpler if he'd kept his damn fool mouth shut, Warren thought, Warren thinks, 'cause knowing it seemed to make a difference. He should've just shot the bastard back at Minnie's and had done with it.

Still, the next night when Mannix stopped by the saloon round dinner time just like usual, they both pretended like that shit had never happened. They got pretty good at that pretty fast. Turned out they needed to.

It was the same thing that night after dinner. It was the same thing the next night and the night after that, the night after that and the night after _that_ , too, Mannix on his knees and Warren might've sat or he might've stood, might've leaned back against a wall and closed his eyes as he cocked his gun, but the outcome was pretty close to fucking predictable, or maybe just predictable fucking: he came in Mannix's mouth while Mannix came in his pants or came all over the floor and then Warren made him clean that shit up with his shirt before he left. 

Three months. Three months and every damn night they were both in town Mannix came up to Warren's room like that was just as normal as dinner, like either thing was right at all with who they were. They ate and then Warren went out to play some cards after or he went right back up to his room, drank some, read some, and Mannix would come in round about midnight by the hands on Warren's pocketwatch, the one he took from a dead man years ago now. He recalls the night before Mannix left on some shitty sheriff's business, how he fished out his watch by its chain and held it up to the lamp he'd been reading by, then pushed it back into its pocket like he gave a damn about the time and that shit wasn't just to make Mannix wait. Then he put his hand on his pistol where he'd sat it on the table while he waited, 'cause god-fucking-damn it, he'd started _waiting_ for him, and that shit just made him angry, made him laugh, made him wonder why the hell he hadn't just left Red Rock and never come back. 

Mannix didn't ever need no invitation 'cept for Warren's hand on that gun. He crossed the room and went down on his knees but when his hands would've usually gone to Warren's belt, when his mouth would've pressed down hot over the crotch of Warren's pants before he pulled them down and found skin instead, he just hung his damn fool head instead and so Warren pressed the pistol up to his forehead. He cocked it. Mannix looked at him like he'd've liked to've drawn his own. So Warren turned the gun right around in his hand and gave it to him, grip first, because why the hell not.

Mannix held it at arm's length and aimed it right at his head. Warren smiled as he sat back in his chair. 

"You ain't never gonna shoot me, Chris Mannix," Warren said. 

"You know I will," Mannix replied. 

"I know you _won't_." Warren gestured vaguely at the floor. "Now put that gun down and get on and do what you came here for." 

There was a moment when he thought maybe Mannix was just mad enough to do it, when he thought maybe Mannix had told himself long enough and hard enough and with great enough frequency that this shit was all Marquis Warren's fault, like all black men had magic in 'em strong enough to charm a full-grown man against his will. There was a moment when he thought maybe Mannix would paint the wall with his brains. Then Mannix scrubbed his face with one hand and he put down the gun on the floorboards at the foot of the bed. Warren smiled brighter.

"That's real good, Chris," he told him, and Mannix grimaced and he smiled and then he laughed into his hands before he looked back up at him from his knees there. "Now get your damned gloves off your hands and get your damned hands on me, boy, before I go ahead and die of old age." 

Mannix grimace-smiled so wide his teeth showed like a travelling fucking freak show, but he did it. He tossed his gloves down on the floor and he unbuckled Warren's belt and when Warren lifted his hips he went ahead and yanked his pants and his long johns right down past his knees till they caught on the top of his boots. He rubbed his goddamned prickly-ass cheek against the inside of one of Warren's spread thighs, rubbed the other thigh pretty close to too hard with one hand, and Warren caught the front of his own fresh-laundered shirt and tugged it up so Mannix had a clear run to get his tongue to the head of his dick. And fuck if the redneck son of a bitch didn't look right up at him while he did it. 

"Do it with your hands," Warren told him, and Mannix looked like he was all set to throw up more than he was set to do like he was told 'cept he went ahead and did it anyway, spat into one hand and wrapped that hand round Warren's dick and stroked him as he sat himself back on his heels. 

He told him what to do. He told him tighter when it needed to be tighter, told him harder when it needed to be harder, told him faster, told him _leave off a second and unbutton your shirt_ and Mannix did that, too, even though he must've known what Warren had in mind. He had Mannix stroke him like that with his thighs spread out wide and Warren's own hand wrapped right around his balls, both of 'em 'cause in the heat of the moment back at Minnie's he'd had no way to know Jody'd missed, till he came all over Mannix's chest. He passed him a neckerchief as old as the damn hills to wipe himself down with after, one that he'd never gotten the bloodstains out of so he wouldn't feel the loss too keen, and Mannix knelt there while he cleaned himself up. 

Mannix dragged his fingertips through the stuff on his chest, looked at it, frowned. 

"You thought it'd be dark like the rest of me, huh," Warren said, and Mannix shrugged. "Jesus Christ, don't tell me we're bonding or some shit over the color of a black man's spunk." 

"You got a real dirty mind, major," Mannix said, but he didn't deny it. Weren't no reason to, Warren guessed, 'cause they both knew Warren understood him pretty well by then, so Mannix cleaned himself up and buttoned up his shirt and Warren watched him do it. His arousal was pretty damn clear, straining against his pants. Warren chuckled as he caught his breath.

"Shit, boy, you're gonna do yourself injury if you don't do something about that," he said, gesturing to the crotch of Mannix's pants. "You go right ahead, pretend like I'm not even here."

So he did. Just like that, no more encouragement needed, Mannix fished himself from his pants and did it right there on his knees. Warren watched him do it. Mannix watched him watch him do it, serious like he never was. And when Warren stretched out one leg and slipped the toe of his new-polished leather boot up tight under Mannix's balls, Mannix jerked and groaned and came all over the leather with a look on his face like he never expected to get off so damn fast. All Warren could do was snicker to himself while Mannix cleaned up his boots without him so much as saying a word about it. He watched while Mannix tucked himself in, while he picked himself up off the floor, while he made for the door.

"Was that..." Mannix said, toying with the door bolt, looking like he wanted to yank it clear off the wood and beat himself over the head with it till his brains leaked on out his ears. He coughed and shook his head like a prize fool while Warren stood himself up and tucked in his shirt, buckled his belt. "Was that _good_?"

Warren sighed. He wanted to say no - experience and common sense and all that sensible shit told him to say no. He wanted to say the little bastard needed a hell of a lot of practice if he had ambitions to get _good_ , so they should get on that tomorrow night. He wanted to ignore the damn question and point out how Mannix hadn't left once he didn't have a gun on him, hadn't shot him when he'd had the chance, 'cause it was pretty clear he liked it. 

"Yeah," he said instead, and Mannix smiled, screwed his eyes shut, grimaced and made Warren snicker all over again. Problem was, it didn't feel all that funny. Problem was, he liked it too.

Mannix left, and when the door closed behind him Warren had another drink 'cause that seemed like the thing to do. In the morning, afternoon, whenever the fuck it was Warren finally dragged his sorry ass out of bed still half drunk and full surly, Mannix was already on his way out of town. 

Warren figured that was for the best, all told.

\---

Mannix was his own fucking lunatic self the night he got back into town, at dinner, like he'd never come on Warren's boots at all.

They sat there, drinking, eating stew for the three hundredth goddamned time 'cause it was all the cook knew how to make that wouldn't likely end in diners taking turns chucking it up or shitting it out in the outhouse, and Mannix told him all about his trip, about the sheriff in the next town like he hadn't met him plenty his own damn self, about how his deputy was fixing to get married in a couple of months like anyone gave a shit about that, about anything and everything that popped into his head like his brain and his mouth were connected up so's every last thought he had made it past his lips the second he had it. Of course, that was hardly news where Chris Mannix was concerned. They way he ran his mouth he could've been a politician.

It went on like that, Warren ignoring him or nodding along in the appropriate places according to his whim at the time till some damn fool drunk from three tables over stood up and called Warren _nigger_. Mannix slapped his hands down on the table with a bark of strange-ass laughter. Warren raised his brows and kept on smoking his Red Apple. Looked like he was the one about to get dinner and a show for once, he thought. 

Mannix didn't give the fella any spiel about how he was the motherfucking sheriff of Red Rock and how some big-mouthed out-of-towner was disrespecting his dinner guest. Fact was, he didn't say a damn thing, he just stood himself on up and went over there to that table and with his face pulled all taut and out of place like the fucking apocalypse was nigh upon them, he beat the fella down, beat him bloody with the butt of his gun till he was straddling the guy's chest on the floor and there was barely no fight left in him. Warren just sat on back and watched him do it, then watched him dust himself off and sit back down to his stew with blood all over his coat and his face and his hands. Fuck if Warren hadn't gone and gotten half-hard just from watching. Fuck if Mannix wasn't half-hard from doing it.

Mannix's deputy - the one with the pretty fiancée Warren was pretty sure neither of them gave a damn about - took the guy away after and called in the doctor to see to him over in the sheriff's office. He'd probably live, not that anyone there gave a damn about that, either. Red Rock wasn't some prissy like they had back east, after all.

"Some might say that was an overreaction," Warren said. 

Mannix shrugged. "Would you?"

Warren polished off his drink and set the glass back down on the table as he considered the question, considered his answer. "No," he said, and Mannix snorted in something like amusement. Of course, the racist son of a bitch who'd just gotten his cheekbones beaten in wasn't the only racist son of a bitch in that bar 'cause Mannix was still right there, and Marquis Warren didn't need no son of the goddamned south to fight his battles for him, not even if it tickled him metaphorically pink to see it happen. But hell, it was pretty damned plain that the dumbass was out of control, so then Warren stood and he dragged Mannix upstairs and once they were behind closed doors, he drew his gun like maybe that'd get him back on track.

Mannix gawped. Warren frowned.

"Strip," he said, revolver in his hand, down by his side. 

When he turned back around once he'd bolted the door, Mannix was frowning too. "What you talking about?"

"Strip," Warren said, raising his gun arm up level. "Are you deaf as well as ugly?" He cocked the gun. "Take off your motherfucking clothes!" 

So Mannix did it, bit by bit, haphazard and hopping around like some goddamned shitty circus act till all his shit was in a pile on the floorboards behind the door. Then he stood there naked, covering his privates with his hands like some modest old maid while Warren aimed his gun at him. 

"You ain't got nothing I ain't see before, white boy," Warren said, and gestured at Mannix's hands with the gun, so he moved them away with a grimace so tight his teeth showed. Cocksucker was still half-hard by then, like Warren still was, too. "Now get up on the bed. Hands and knees." 

He watched him do it then he moved over there with him, shuffled up behind him there on his knees, still fully clothed from head to toe just like Mannix wasn't. He tossed his hat away across the room and shrugged out of his coat but that was far enough, he thought. For now.

"I don't know what you're thinking of doing here, major," Mannix said, "but don't do nothing rash." And that was all well and good 'cept _something rash_ was precisely what he was thinking of. He set the gun down on the small of Mannix's back and he unbuckled his gun belt, set it aside. He unbuckled his belt, shoved his pants down over his hips and let his half-hard cock slap down against the small of Mannix's back, and Mannix made a sound like nothing Warren had heard him make before. So he picked his gun back up and leaned over, leaned forward, and he trailed the muzzle of it down the line of Mannix's spine, right down to the indent right before the crack of his ass. 

"You _sure_ you don't want me to do nothing rash?" Warren said. He ran his gun down, skimmed his asscrack and teased down lower with it, nudged his balls with it, teased the tip of his cock with the muzzle. "You got a hard-on down there like a goddamn pine tree begs to differ, boy."

Mannix said not a damn word so Warren chuckled and rubbed at Mannix's asshole with one fingertip. He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed there with that instead, guided the head of his cock up against him and rubbed there with _that_ instead and Mannix fairly fucking whimpered at it, screwed the hell up as he was. He'd have let him do it, Warren's pretty sure of that even now; he'd've let him do it even when he set the gun aside on the mattress. He maybe even wanted him to, and maybe he should've done it, shown him just how bad the damn idea was. He didn't. Not then.

He spat into his hand and stroked it over his cock then pushed it in between Mannix thighs instead. Pretty soon Mannix caught up, caught on, and he pulled his knees in tight together, caught his dick up between them. Warren pushed right up behind his balls, got his hands on Mannix's hips, his waist, and hell, he hadn't had any man like that in years, at least ten, more like fifteen when he thought about it, when he thinks about it now. He hadn't so much as _touched_ any man like that in years, let alone Chris motherfucking Mannix, 'specially not when he shifted his hips, got the friction just right and reached around, got Mannix's dick in his hand and stroked. Mannix ducked down and shoved his face into the pillow like he had it in mind to smother his dumbass self to death rather than feel Warren's hand on him he liked it so damn much. Warren could sympathize. 

Mannix was done in two minutes flat after that, shuddering hard as he came over Warren's hand that had to be damn near too tight around him, muffling whatever idiot sound it was he made against Warren's pillow. Warren didn't take too long after, either, messing up Mannix's pretty white balls with his stuff. Warren wiped himself off with Mannix's shirt while Mannix frowned like an ass and then he made to pull on his pants. 

"Why'd you beat that boy, anyhow?" Warren asked as he pulled off his boots, undressing while Mannix tried to dress. Only one of them would be leaving the room, after all.

Mannix buckled his belt, stood there barefoot and shirtless with his hands on his hips. "Seemed like the thing to do," he said. "Friends look out for each other. We're friends, ain't we?"

Warren raised his brows. "Is _that_ what we are?" 

Mannix picked up his soiled shirt, frowned and put it on. "Well I sure as hell don't know what else to call it," he said. 

Warren guessed that was all there was for it: he'd gone and made friends with a damn confederate, accidentally but there it was. And it wasn't no beautiful friendship, either. It was dumb and it was messy and it was fucked the hell up, so he didn't answer, didn't say a word. He watched him dress instead.

"I'll see you tomorrow, sheriff," Warren said, once Mannix had his boots on, his coat on, his hat. 

Mannix nodded. "You sure will," he said, with a flash of a smile like somehow all his worries had just clearer right away, blue skies and sunshine. He clicked his bootheels together, gave a dumbass mock salute. "Evening, major." Warren laughed despite himself. 

Mannix left. Warren turned in. Something had started that day they raced the blizzard to Minnie's Haberdashery, and Marquis Warren wasn't altogether sure if it was the best thing or the worst thing that had happened in his whole life, or just a thing, some shitty thing that complicated all the rest of the shitty things. 

All he knew was he for damn sure didn't hate Chris Mannix like he knew he should. Maybe he never had, who the fuck knew.

\--

It's been a whole nother three years since then and now here they are at the dinner table, eating cook's stew just like always. Mannix is running his damn fool mouth 'cause he's a garrulous fuck, on duty and off of it and sometimes in the sack though that drives Warren nuts and they both know it. 

Warren's pretending not to listen. He's heard it all before, about Mannix's day and his work and his horse and his new fucking boots, about his childhood and his tough guy daddy too, the one Warren would've shot down in a second had the opportunity come along. Mannix is an open book and Warren's read it. Warren tells him sometimes he liked him better before he knew him but Mannix just grins that shit-eating grin 'cause he always knows when Warren's lying. It's like the bastard's got a sixth sense for that shit where he's concerned.

Warren went up to Minnie's to take care of the place one summertime while they were in between stable hands, while Jenny and Jackie went south to visit her momma. Mannix rode in three days later, made himself right at home and Warren guesses that was fair, all things considered. He sure as hell didn't turn him away.

"You ain't never done half the shit you say you've done," Mannix said that night, feet up on the table, glass in hand. "I bet you ain't never even met General Smithers' boy."

"Sure I did," Warren said, sitting back with a smile. "I shot that bastard in the head the second I heard who he was."

"I knew it!" Mannix banged his glass down on the tabletop and spilled his drink like a jackass; Warren said nothing about how he couldn't hold his liquor. "You're as crooked as that old Lincoln letter, Marquis Warren, don't you say you're not."

Warren smiled all broad and toothy and shrugged his shoulders high. And forty minutes of Mannix's godforsaken gloating later, Warren drew his pistol out of his gun belt and he put it on the tabletop. Mannix knew what that meant. He shut the fuck up double quick in sheer anticipation.

Sometimes Mannix needs persuasion and sometimes he don't. Sometimes Warren'll stop by the sheriff's office before dinner and he'll rattle the cages with the rings on his fingers while Mannix sits there with his feet up on his desk. Turns out he's as good at his job as Warren is at his, who the hell saw that one coming, so maybe that sixth sense about liars ain't wholly confined to Marquis Warren. Sometimes they'll go in back and the sheriff of Red Rock'll get down on his knees with the point of a knife at his throat and a thin trickle of blood down his neck, or maybe a gun to his head. Mannix likes both.

Sometimes, when the cells are all empty, the sheriff locks up the front door. Sometimes, Warren cuffs him to the bars like he'd ever try to run away without; sometimes, Mannix shoves down his pants and bends on over his desk like his pasty white ass is somehow fucking alluring, so Warren goes ahead and slaps it red, spits in his hand and fingers it, no firearms required, no pretense he don't like it. They both know he likes it. They've settled into a weird-ass working relationship, the sheriff and the bounty hunter, but after hours it's something else. 

Sometimes Mannix needs persuasion and sometimes he don't, like in winter when the sheriff's house ain't got no heat so they share Warren's bed 'cause it's warmer there, though it's all knees and elbows and cussing right the way on through the night. Sometimes he don't need persuasion, like the times they've gotten stuck out on the road overnight and turned out bedrolls by a fire like that don't sometimes attract a whole damn cloud of insects and Mannix don't get bitten halfway to kingdom come. It gets chilly out there in the fall and worse when fall turns to winter, and they've sat together clapping their hands and stomping their feet by the flames, shivering their nuts off out there on the side of some snowy fucking hill like either of them ever meant to end up living their lives in Wyoming. Mannix don't need no persuasion those times, his face in the crook of Warren's neck while they jerk each other off with leather-gloved hands. Warren keeps telling himself he's getting too old for this shit but Mannix smiles wide and says fuck that, he's gonna live forever.

It was at Minnie's, that night with Jenny away and Warren's pistol on the table, when it went too far the first time. He remembers Making Mannix strip down to his skin, but that was nothing new. He remembers making Mannix strip him down, too, and that _was_ something new. Mannix folded Warren's damn clothes like the uniform still meant something after the war, like Mannix's dumb white ass ain't never been confederate, and that's the way it's been every other time since that, too. The little shit gets off on it, he thinks, gets off on the shame and the guilt like all the cogs in his head got knocked loose. Mannix is a fucking lunatic.He figures he ain't so much better himself, since the fool's still walking around in a confederate general's coat. They make a sight together, that's for sure.

They took Warren's pistol to bed that night and he held it while he spat in his hand, while he played with Mannix's tight little hole, while he leaned down and licked him there, teased him with his tongue 'cause it was the best way he could think to get him wet enough, never mind how Mannix's hips twitched with it while he tried to stay still, how he cussed a blue streak against the pillows. He had the gun in his hand while he rubbed the head of his cock between Mannix's cheeks. He pressed the muzzle of it to the small of Mannix's back as he pushed on into him. Then he dropped it down on the floor with a clunk Mannix couldn't've missed if he'd tried to. They both knew he didn't need it.

He had his fingers over the scar in Mannix's leg while he fucked him, the one he'd got that night in the blizzard. When he came in him with a shout he didn't try to muffle, balls tight, cock hard, he had his fingers still pressed up to that damn scar. In the morning, when Mannix rode him like a green fucking ranch hand on an irritable bull, enthusiastic but wanting something in finesse, he had his fingers pressed to that scar and Mannix laughed at him, breathless and sweaty, his hair all sticking up every which way like that made a difference from normal. Anyone else, he'd've fucking killed him right there. Of course, anyone else wouldn't've twisted the whole damn blizzard story around to make it all about himself. Anyone else wouldn't've told it with Warren's damn cock up in him.

"Don't you ever shut the hell up?" Warren said, his fingers pulling tight at the bars in the headboard. 

"Sure," Mannix said, his pale-ass self flushed up all red like he'd spent a week riding nude in the summer sun. "Sometimes you've got a gun on me."

"You ain't never needed a gun to your head, Chris Mannix," Warren told him, and brought one hand down to tease the tip of his cock with the tip of one finger, till he fairly shivered with it. "You'd've sucked me off in that damn coach ten minutes after you got in it if I'd told you to, right in front of John Ruth and dear ol' Daisy. Ain't that right?"

"You know it is," Mannix replied, and that familiar beaming, shit-eating grin spread right across his face as he leaned down and rode him harder. 

"You'd've bent yourself over the bar by the brandy and begged me for my big black dick, right in front of Sandy Smithers."

"You know I would." 

"You'd've got down on your knees and licked my black balls right in front of your big-shot confederate daddy and all five hundred Marauders."

Mannix laughed. "He'd've cut your nuts off and fed 'em to you," he said, spreading his palms against Warren's chest and leaning there. "You can count on that."

Warren's hands went real tight at Mannix's hips and he set his heels against the mattress, braced himself, pushed up against him, made him groan, made his eyes roll. "And what would he've done to you, huh?"

Mannix shrugged and tapped his forefinger to his own sweat-slicked forehead, there between his eyes. "He'd've shot me right _here_ and let the birds pick all the flesh off of my sorry bones," he said, then he took himself in hand, started to stroke. "He weren't so much the forgiving and forgetting kind. Reminds me of you, major." 

"I ain't your daddy, white boy," Warren said. He wrapped his hand over the top of Mannix's, squeezed sharp to punctuate his point real clearly. 

Mannix just paused a second, went real still as he looked the two of them over with a comical expression on his ugly face. "Well I sure as hell _hope_ you ain't!" he said, squeezing his ass tight as he could around Warren's dick. "Given the situation at hand and all." 

Warren laughed and Mannix went right on back to riding him. He guessed maybe the shame would come later, and sometimes it has, and sometimes it hasn't.

Back in town, a couple of weeks later, they fell back into that same old familiar rhythm. Back in town, there ain't no one there will pal around with the sheriff 'cause they all know he eats dinner with a big ol' nigger every night. Mannix don't seem to give a good goddamn about that. It don't give him no free pass for all the things he's said and done, 'cause for damn sure his stupid mouth won't cease flapping, but the way he points his guns and flashes his tin star at his mouthy clientele is pretty endearing sometimes, when Warren's had too much to drink. 

He's had too much to drink tonight and he knows it. He got in from Minnie's a few hours ago and when Mannix skips out after dinner - sheriff's business - he goes upstairs. He sits down with a bottle and a couple more hours pass till now he's past tipsy and well on into drunk, and in the end he's expecting it when the door swings open. He pours a glass for Mannix. Mannix straddles his thighs and sets himself down in Warren's lap like he don't weigh damn near as much as a horse and he knocks back the shot in one, hammers his glass back down on the table near hard enough to break it. Some nights he'd shove him off and watch him sprawl on his ass just for the hell of it. Not tonight. Maybe. At least not yet. 

"You miss me?" Mannix asks, grinning himself stupid, like he needs the help for that. 

"Like a hole in the head," Warren says, not sure if he's serious, and Mannix tugs on his beard like that ain't akin to taunting a bear. Still, Warren's already got his hands under Mannix's coat so fuck if the scowl on his face ain't a mixed signal. 

"You're a mean bastard, Marquis Warren," Mannix says, still grinning, and he don't kiss him 'cause that's the one last damn thing they don't ever do, like it ain't real without it, like nights spent sewing up each other's cuts, gotten in the line of duty or maybe just a fight down in the bar, don't tell the tale already, like the fact Warren knows every last little bit of Mannix's frame from his shitty hair to his bony-ass knees to the scars on his skin, don't mean shit. Mannix tugs on his beard again so Warren slaps his hands away then slaps his face, but Mannix just smiles brighter. "You're a _mean_ old bastard."

"You sound like John Ruth," Warren says, quirks his brows. "You wanna hang me, sheriff?"

Mannix laughs. "I ain't a hangman no more than old Oswaldo was," he says. "Shit, there's times I ain't all that much of a sheriff, neither."

"And I ain't no Daisy Domergue." 

Mannix nods. He pours another drink. Once upon a time, Chris Mannix wouldn't've spit on him if he'd been on fire. Once upon a time, Chris Mannix would've lit the damn fire himself. Now he's pouring him drinks, now he's warming his bed, now they're _friends_ , the sheriff and the bounty hunter. Things change.

They go to bed not long after, 'cause it's late and one of them's got a regular job like a regular fella. They go to bed and they fuck and Mannix talks the whole damn time like maybe he don't even need to pause for breath and that just makes Warren fuck him harder, grip him tighter, till he finishes halfway between coming and cramping and cussing and that ain't exactly unusual. Sometimes he wishes kissing were a thing they did 'cause it'd shut up Mannix's damn fool mouth. Maybe one day he'll do it just to see the look on Mannix's damn fool face, 'cause pushing him's just what Warren lives for. And Mannix'll leave or he won't, it don't matter much which, 'cause they'll still see each other tomorrow at dinner.

So maybe that coach ride with Daisy and the Hangman wasn’t the start of a beautiful friendship, but whatever it is all goes back to that, to Minnie's Haberdashery and Jody Domergue waiting for his sister down underneath the floorboards. Warren thinks if he and Mannix hadn't been half dead by the time they strung up Daisy, once all the rest were dead, they might've done more than lie there and wait for death. They'd laid there in each other's blood instead so who knows, maybe seeing how you couldn't tell black from white once everything was bleeding red made all the difference. Or hell, maybe they're both just outta their motherfucking minds.

"I got a couple new warrants for you back at the office," Mannix says after, sprawled on his front all sweaty and pink like he's caught the sun shining back up off the damn Wyoming snow, like talking shop in Warren's bed ain't the height of poor fucking etiquette. 

"You coming along this time?" Warren asks. It pisses him off that he don't mind the company, where they are now or on the road, but not so much he doesn't pull up the scratchy-ass blanket.

"I reckon I will." 

"We'll swing by Minnie's on the way."

Mannix nods. Warren closes his eyes. They're a good team, if a fucking strange one.

It wasn't the start of a beautiful friendship, but it sure was the start of _something_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Tempest: _Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows_.


End file.
